Daniel Olbrychski: Face to Face with a Legend

“You will never be an actor!” – legendary coach Zbigniew Zaremba, who trained runners at Warsaw’s Lotnik club and the Polish Olympic team, shouted at him. He wanted to steer his promising pupil away from acting and toward an athletic career, believing in his great potential as a runner. But the young Daniel Olbrychski had other plans and never left the cinema.

How much Polish athletics lost because of this decision is unknown. But we do know how much Polish cinema gained – something that will be made clear in the retrospective of Daniel Olbrychski’s films, presented as part of this year’s Timeless Film Festival Warsaw. This special retrospective coincides with the actor’s 80th birthday.

For this retrospective, Daniel Olbrychski personally selected 19 feature films and 5 television theater productions. 8 of these will be screened at the Timeless Film Festival Warsaw, while the remaining 12 films and 5 TV productions will be shown at Kino Iluzjon after the festival. Olbrychski and filmmakers associated with the presented films will meet with the audience.